


I'm Not Prepared (To Need You Everywhere)

by smc_27



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 11:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16428944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smc_27/pseuds/smc_27
Summary: “I thought you hated me.”She slips her sweaty hand into his, tugs a little and he grabs his drink off the bar. “I can hate you and still want to dance with you.”She knows he’s going to watch her anyway. She might as well have fun with him as he does it.





	I'm Not Prepared (To Need You Everywhere)

He’s there, once, in California. There’s this party, and she didn’t want to go, but then someone handed her an adderall and told her to buck up and come out, because it was going to be a good time. 

She’s sweating and dancing and her tank top is tied up at her waist when she sees him, sipping a drink and watching her. He licks his lips and she turns away, but only lasts one more song before she’s walking over to him. He’s with some guy she doesn’t know.

The guy says, “Hey gorgeous,” and she smiles at him before wedging herself between him and Carter. 

“Beautiful,” Carter says, and it’s either a greeting or a correction. She can’t tell and her body is buzzing and she can’t… “What are you doing here?” 

She takes his drink, finishes the rest and sets the glass on the bar. He gestures for another one. 

“Dancing,” she answers simply. Carter pushes her hair off her forehead. “Stop looking at me like you’re worried about me.” 

God, everyone needs to stop doing that. 

“What’d you take?” he asks over the music, and Serena sets her hands on his shoulders. 

“Nothing I can’t handle.” Carter tilts his head, smiles a little, almost sadly. “Come dance.” 

“I thought you hated me.” 

She slips her sweaty hand into his, tugs a little and he grabs his drink off the bar. “I can hate you and still want to dance with you.” 

She knows he’s going to watch her anyway. She might as well have fun with him as he does it. 

… … …

He sends a card when CeCe dies. 

Serena opens it while she’s dressed in black and thinking she’s not going to cry anymore. 

There’s a handwritten note inside that just says he’s sorry for her loss, says he knows how important family is to her. 

His number is written below his signature. 

She updates his contact in her phone, wonders why she never deleted him. 

… … …

Everything happens with Dan, and she feels so stupid, and silly and _lost_ , that she packs a bag and has her driver take her to the airport, and this is the dumbest thing she could do. 

She dials Carter’s number because part of her feels like when she’s making dumb decisions, he’s the one who’s always willing to stand beside her. 

“Where are you?” she asks.

She hears him sigh on the other end of the line. 

She wishes she could stop disappointing absolutely everyone. 

… … …

Alberta is cold this time of year, and when she asks why he’s here, he says something about his family scooping up acres of land and building a hotel a couple years ago. They’re in Banff, which she’s never even been confident pronouncing, and he looks good in his ski jacket and with this beard on his face. 

“You look grown,” she tells him, and he shakes his head, says, “We’re not kids anymore.” 

It sounds like a reminder he thinks she needs. 

Most days, she probably does. 

The hotel is beautiful and warm and cozy, and she’s absolutely shocked that he doesn’t give her her own room. 

Probably as shocked as he was to get her call in the first place. 

He’s in the penthouse. She’s looking out the window at the mountains when a hotel staff member drops her bags off in the room. 

“Did you pack warm enough things?” 

“Why?” she asks, turning around to face him. “Do you want to take me shopping?” 

Carter smiles a bit, shakes his head like she’s a bother when they both know that’s obviously not how he feels. If he did, she wouldn’t be standing here with him.

“Come on, then. Can’t have you freezing.” 

She could pay for all this stuff on her own, but he sets his credit card down on the counter and the staff call him Mr. Baizen and when they’re out on the street again and just walking, people notice him, wave at him, and she’s just so…

“Are you like, a _local_?”

He chuckles a bit. She sticks her hands in her pockets. There’s a pair of mittens in the bag he’s carrying, but she’s sure she can make it back to the hotel without needing them. 

“People know me. I’ve been here six months. This place is mostly tourists, so you start to notice who you see every day.” 

Serena’s quiet a moment until he looks over at her. “They’re probably wondering who I am.” 

Carter says, “Let them wonder,” and she tries not to feel hurt that he doesn’t think she’ll stick around long enough for people to find out the truth.

… … …

It’s two days before he kisses her. 

They drive to Lake Louise and Serena’s struck silent by how gorgeous everything is. Every time she tries to say something about it, she notices he’s looking at _her_ , not how blue the water is, or how the mountains look with snow on them. They walk around the lake and over some rocks and she poses for a couple pictures and he says something about how her eyes are the same colour as the water. 

“I’ve never seen anything this beautiful,” she says, and then Carter’s hand is on her hip and she’s looking up at him. 

“Serena,” he says quietly, as if to tell her _he has_.

The thing about Carter - one of the things, she thinks, that makes her feel so much for him - is that she can always, always, always feel him smiling when he kisses her. 

She likes that she can make someone _happy_.

… … ...

Carter sleeps with the windows open. It doesn’t matter where he is in the world, what the temperature is, or the time of year or anything. 

Serena wakes up freezing, pulls the duvet up over her shoulders and moves closer to him. He wakes up, walks wearing just his boxers to the closet and pulls out another blanket. He sets it over her on the bed. 

Once he’s back under the covers, she moves her hand up his chest and he takes it with his. 

This feels intimate and domestic in a way they’ve never really been, and Serena wonders _what if_.

… … …

“Are you going to tell me what problems you’re running from?” 

She freezes, coffee cup half raised to her lips, and looks at him across the counter in the kitchen of his suite. 

She owes him this much, doesn’t she? She owes him that. 

“Dan,” is all she says before he’s scoffing, tipping his head back and then looking at her like this is the same old song and dance. “It’s complicated.” 

“Everything about you is complicated,” he tells her, and she presses her lips together to try to stop herself crying. “You just cycle through the same three guys. When’s that going to end?”

“That’s not fair,” she manages. 

“Since when are you about what’s fair?” 

It hurts and it’s a little mean, but it’s also true, she thinks, and maybe _none_ of this is fair, right? Maybe it’s not fair to him. She should be selfless enough to care about that. 

“I like knowing I can always count on you,” she finally admits. _Finally_ , after years and years of this back and forth they do. Carter pushes a hand through his hair. Maybe he isn’t taking that as a compliment, but he should. 

“I think you just…God, Serena. You were searching your whole life for your father, and I think you thought when you found him all this other shit would be fixed, and it’s _not_ , and you don’t know what the hell to do about that.” 

She breathes out, “Carter,” because this feels a lot like therapy, or something, which is the reason she doesn’t _go_. It’s awful.

“You’re just here because running’s the only thing you know how to do.”

A tear slips down her cheek and he just watches her, eyes cast down just enough to let her know maybe he didn’t mean to say all that, but now that he’s said them he’s not going to take it back.

“You used to like running with me,” she manages, and maybe it sounds like an accusation. Maybe it is one. 

He smiles, just slightly, almost so little that if she didn’t know him, she wouldn’t see it, says, “I just like _you_ , beautiful.” 

He tells her he has to go out and tend to some things, and she thinks he knows she won’t be here when he gets back. The way he kisses her at the door tells her as much, anyway. 

She packs her things, leaves without a note. 

He gave her the out and she took it. There’s something almost poetic about proving him right.

And this is the first time he’s let her leave. Asked her to. Knew what she was going to do and didn’t stop her.

… … …

She and Blair summer in the south of France at Blair’s dad’s estate, spend too much time in the sun and drinking wine, sometimes at the same time. Nate and Chuck visit for Serena’s birthday. They eat dinner outside as the sun is going down. Nate pours her champagne, locks eyes with her as he hands her the glass and there’s something so sad about the silent conversations they have anymore. What used to be all _longing_ and _I wish_ and _we can’t_ has become _remember_ and _I’m sorry_ and _what if we hadn’t fucked it up?_.

She walks between rows of grapes in the dark with expensive sandals on her feet. Blair finds her, links their arms together. 

“Happy birthday, S.” 

“Happy Bastille Day, B.” 

They giggle and giggle and then Chuck is there at the end of the row, hand in the pocket of his slacks and a smile on his face. 

“Serena,” he says, handing over an envelope that looks like it went through a lot to get to her. It’s addressed with her name, and there’s no return address. 

She recognizes the handwriting. 

Inside, there’s a note telling her to go into town to the patisserie tomorrow and give them her name. 

He’s signed the note with his initials. 

Blair rolls her eyes, clicks her tongue and says, “Don’t tell Nate,” in a warning tone that Serena doesn’t want to argue with. 

Serena wonders why Carter still cares enough to send her anything at all, let alone go to the trouble to arrange a surprise. 

She likes that he has. She knows that makes her selfish. 

She calls the hotel in Banff to thank him, though it takes a lot - an espresso and half of this incredible cake he’s had them make for her - to get up the nerve to do it. She’s told he’s not there, that he hasn’t been there for months. 

For the first time, it bothers her that he always knows how to find her and she never knows how to find him. She could ask, but it’s not the same. 

… … …

Erik goes to grad school in Cambridge, calls her in November and tells her he’s starting to feel overwhelmed again. She’s on the first flight she can book, just a carryon and her purse with her. As awful as she feels for him, there’s a little part of her that loves that he felt he could tell her this time. That he didn’t let it get so bad as...That he didn’t let it get _bad_. 

She shows up at his flat and he smiles at her and tilts his head, accepts the hug he gives her and says, “You didn’t have to _come_ , Serena. God.”

“Don’t. I wasn’t...I’m _here_.” She looks at him right in the eye and his nose gets a little red like it always has when he’s about to cry. He nods his head and reaches for her luggage. 

They spend all evening talking, and when he finally tells her he’s tired and has a class at 10:00 tomorrow, they get into his double bed and she spoons him from behind just like when they were kids. It’s raining outside, and after he’s asleep she opens the window to let the air in.

Erik pulls a spare key from his desk drawer the next day, gives it to her and tells her not to stay indoors all day. He’ll be back by 5:00 and they’ll do dinner tonight and she can meet his friends at the pub. He seems okay, she asks him if he is, and he laughs and tells her to leave him alone. 

They both know she won’t. 

“You’ll never guess who I saw today,” Erik mentions as they sit with his friends at this dark pub she never in a million years would have pictured him in. She sips this thick beer he said she’d like - she does - and shrugs her shoulder. “Carter Baizen.” 

She forgets sometimes that while Erik tells her a lot of things, she doesn’t tell him much about her. Or, rather, she tells him a lot about her, but she usually holds back the things she thinks would make him think less of her. He knows Carter helped find their father. He knows Carter was her boyfriend, or something, for a bit. He doesn’t know anything else. Not about lies, or other visits, or Santorini, or Fiji, or Banff, or the fact that she thinks he loves her in some way or another and she’s just really not willing to let him. 

“I invited him tonight. He said he’d stop by,” Erik says, and Serena feels _stupid_ wearing these jeans she’s had since high school and a Cambridge crewneck.

Carter strolls in after midnight, grins when he sees her. He’s shaved his beard, and he’s back to wearing slacks and button down shirts and this expensive watch on his wrist. He sets his hand on her neck, leans down to kiss her cheek in greeting. 

He’s acting like they’re old friends and nothing’s ever happened between them. The thinks that’s for Erik’s benefit. Hers, even, since maybe he knows Erik doesn’t know everything. Like he’s just assumed she wouldn’t have told her brother.

“Carter,” she breathes out. 

He winks and introduces himself to Erik’s friends, makes her push herself further into the booth so he can sit next to her and they’re pressed together, hip to hip. His arm goes lazily around her, and Erik’s looking at her across the table like he can tell there’s something she’s kept him in the dark about. That’s probably not entirely shocking to him, either.

Carter orders a whiskey for himself and another round for everyone else, leans over and says, “Relax,” into her ear as though she has no reason to be tense. 

She wants to get the hell out of here. She wanted this visit to be just about _Erik_ , not about Carter. 

Erik announces an hour later that he’s going to head home to bed; half his friends have left already. She says she’ll come with him, but he insists she stay and catch up with Carter. 

“I’ll get her home safely,” Carter says, and she feels like the younger sibling when Erik gives her this knowing smile and tells her to wake him when she gets in so he knows she’s okay. 

“What are you _doing here_ ,” she hisses at him the second they’re alone. Carter smirks like he likes her mad at him. “Do you have a flag on my passport, or something?”

His face hardens a bit. She can see his jaw tense. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he tells her, and he means it. “I’m visiting relatives. I ran into Erik by total fluke.” She blinks. That seems...highly unlikely, but here they are. “Then he mentioned you’re visiting, and...Why are you so pissed at me?” 

“You don’t understand.” She turns a bit, knee bumping his. He moves his arm and rests his hand on her waist instead. “I’m here for Erik. Not just to visit. He’s...There’s a lot you don’t know, okay?”

“Tell me,” Carter says gently.

And this is the thing, right? She never feels like she can’t trust him when he uses that tone of voice. He always reminds her that he’s good with her secrets. 

It all comes spilling out, until there are tears in her eyes and she’s talking about leaving school and going to Erik and _that’s_ why she went back to New York from boarding school, and she mentions Santorini, too, just as it fits into the timeline, and Carter looks down at the table, then, plays with a coaster left behind. She says she’s here because Erik called her and she wants to be there for him, wants to be _good_ for him, and if nothing else in the world, she needs to take care of her little brother. 

“Why are you so upset?” Carter asks carefully, pushing her hair off her shoulder. 

She’s never said this out loud, but she confesses, “It could have been _me_ ,” and her throat gets tight again. Carter tilts his head at her. “I just...I went wild instead of sitting in a depression. I...self-medicated and made bad choices and ignored emotions and it’s not _about_ me, but I can’t stop thinking that if I hadn’t…” 

“Hey,” Carter says, and puts his hand on her face so she’ll look at him. “This isn’t your fault.” 

She’s not saying it is, but she nods anyway. “I don’t want him to feel alone like I felt alone.” 

Carter lets out this breath, this soft kind of laugh, shakes his head. “Is that how you felt?” She nods her head, because it’s the truth, really, and all her wild antics when she was younger...He was right, in Banff, when he said she’s been trying to fill a void and has never had a single fucking clue how. “Baby.” 

He’s only ever called her that when they were having sex. It’s jarring to hear it now. It sounds so sweet and caring, the way he almost whispers it like he needs her to _understand_ something. 

“And now you show up and it’s all about _me_ again, and I just feel like such a terrible sister.” 

“You’re _here_ , Serena,” Carter insists gruffly. She blinks back her tears and nods her head. “You think that doesn’t mean something to that kid? You know how happy he was to tell me you’re around?” She doesn’t want to smile about that. “The only one who thinks you’re terrible is you.” 

She shouldn’t kiss him. 

She does it anyway. 

It’s not fair to him that this entire relationship has been about him doing things for her, helping her, and making her feel better, but it is, and she _needs_ that, and misses it when he’s not there.

She holds his hand on the walk home, kisses him at the door and nods when he says, “Have breakfast with me tomorrow.” 

She gets into bed, and Erik turns onto his back and looks at her, smiles sleepily. “Okay?” he asks, and she nods. 

“E?” 

“Yeah,” he says, but his eyes are closed again and he won’t see her biting her lip. 

“Carter and I have a lot of history.” 

He chuckles a little, opens his eyes again. “Thought so.” 

“How’d you know?” she asks. 

“You should’ve seen his face when I told him you were here.” Serena wishes she could have. “He might’ve been happier than I was.” 

… … …

At the end of her week in Cambridge, when she’s driving Erik up the wall and he insists he’s _fine_ , and they’ve found him a doctor to talk to and she’s promised she’ll visit him to check in more often, Carter shows up at the door to Erik’s apartment. 

“I have two tickets to Paris. What do you say?” he asks, and Erik’s standing right there, smirk on his lips. 

Serena doesn’t say anything, so Erik nudges her with his elbow and she says, “Okay,” and hugs her brother goodbye. 

… … ...

“How did you know I’d come with you?” she asks as they reach altitude and Carter’s next to her. 

“You always come with me.” Serena presses her lips together so she doesn’t laugh, and he rolls his eyes. “Seriously?” 

She links her arm through his and leans her head on his shoulder.

… … …

“You know…” she starts. He turns to her, and her breath catches just a little. He’s so handsome - always has been - but now his hair is mussed from the sheets, and he hasn’t shaved in long enough that there’s a bit of stubble on his jaw, and his eyes are dark, sleepy. His brows come together as if to ask why she isn’t finishing her thought. “You know, eventually we’ll have to go back to New York.”

She’s never said something like this before, not in terms of ‘we’ or ‘us’. Her plans were always to use his help to get what she wanted, then go back to her own life. The one time he came to New York and tried to be with her without her really asking, they crashed and burned. But they were younger then. 

“I think I could make that work,” he tells her. He’s avoiding her eyes, pushing his hand through her hair. She moves closer, half on top of him, holding the sheet against her chest. Why do they always do this? Maybe they don’t know how not to. “I’m tired.” 

Serena presses a kiss to his mouth. “Sleep.” 

“No,” he laughs, then brushes his thumb across her lips as if to tell her that he has other plans that don’t include sleeping. “I’m tired of being everywhere.” 

It might not make sense, but Serena understands him. 

“And you want to be with me?” she asks gently; she’s scared. 

“I’ve wanted that for a while, beautiful,” he tells her, and she looks him in the eye again, too earnestly. “Waiting for you to realize it was kind of a bitch.” 

“Why did you wait?” 

And that’s the thing that’s most surprising to her, really. She’s used to a lifetime of men and relationships that didn’t work out or didn’t get far or didn’t happen at all because no one ever had any patience with her. _For_ her. It’s been hard enough to get people to care enough to look past what she puts out there, to like who she really is. Dan idealized her and didn’t know what to do with the fact that she wasn’t exactly who he’d built her up to be in his head. Nate...god, Nate maybe knew her better than anyone, and she thinks it’s maybe for that reason that it’s so hard for him to wait around. He wanted her, knew all her flaws and shortcomings, and couldn’t understand how she wasn’t just _okay_ with them, because _he was_. As beautiful as that is, as amazing as it is to have him as a friend, it made a complete mess of any attempts at a relationship. 

Well, that and the secrets. She doesn’t want to think about that. 

Carter responds, “Why wouldn’t I?” and _means it_ , and her throat gets tight and she straddles him, leans down to kiss him. “Right answer?” he teases, and she just nods her head. “What will we do in New York?” She bites her lip and rocks her hips. She can think of several things. “ _Serena_.” 

She loves the way he says her name. 

“Carter Baizen wants to have a plan?” she asks dramatically. He rolls his eyes and sets his hands on her hips. 

“I’m a changed man.” 

“God, I hope not,” she says, leans down to press her lips to his, feels him smiling against her mouth.


End file.
